The invention relates to electrical connectors, more particularly to a vertical-type electrical connector and terminals therefor, the terminals having vertical solder tail portions that form a single row parallel to a vertical back plate of a terminal housing.
Universal Serial Bus (USB) connectors are commonly employed in the computer industry for signal transmission purposes. Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional USB connector set, such as a vertical-type electrical connector set, is shown to comprise a socket 1 and a plug 2 connected to the socket 1 for data transmission. The socket 1 generally comprises a terminal housing 11 having terminals 111 mounted thereon, and a shell 12 for enclosing the terminal housing 11. The shell 12 is formed by punching a conductive plate to form a rectangular shell body, and has an open front end 121 for insertion of the plug 2. Referring to FIG. 2, the terminal housing 11 is formed with four L-shaped terminal cavities in vertical plane thereof. Particularly, the terminal housing 11 has four horizontal terminal contact cavity portions 11a that are vertically aligned, and four vertical solder tail cavity portions 11b that extend from a respective one of the terminal contact cavity portions 11a and that are horizontally aligned in a longitudinal direction of the terminal housing 11. Each of the four terminals 111 is generally L-shaped, and has a terminal contact section 111a disposed in a respective one of the terminal contact cavity portions 11a, and a solder tail section 111b disposed in the corresponding one of the solder tail cavity portions 11b.
The drawbacks of the conventional USB connector set are as follows: the solder tail cavity portions 11b are horizontally aligned in a longitudinal direction of the terminal housing 11. In order to keep an appropriate distance between adjacent solder tail sections 111b disposed in the solder tail cavity portions 11b to minimize signal interference there among and maintain good signal transmission quality, adjacent ones of the solder tail cavity portions 11b must have a fixed distance therebetween. Moreover, in order to align vertically the terminal contact sections 111a and to align horizontally the solder tail sections 111b, the terminal 111 with the uppermost one of the terminal contact sections 111a must be longer than the other terminals 111. Thus, the terminal housing 11 has a relatively long length in the longitudinal direction (about 20-22 mm). Accordingly, there is a corresponding increase in the size of the shell 12 that covers the terminal housing 11. The configuration as such results in a relatively long USB connector socket that occupies more real estate on a circuit board.